


a dead carapace of memory

by consumptive_sphinx



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Gen, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: There’s something that Laurence isn’t being told.It isn't obvious. Most of the aviators in the group are more than friendly with him, if somewhat awkward, and Temeraire is nearly guileless. But Laurence has been paying attention, and he can see how conversations abruptly change when he enters a room, how people pause before they speak to him, how both Tharkay and Captain Granby look profoundly uncomfortable whenever they are near him but refuse to leave his side.





	a dead carapace of memory

There’s something that Laurence isn’t being told. 

It isn't obvious. Most of the aviators in the group are more than friendly with him, if somewhat awkward, and Temeraire is nearly guileless. But Laurence has been paying attention, and he can see how conversations abruptly change when he enters a room, how people pause before they speak to him, how both Tharkay and Captain Granby look profoundly uncomfortable whenever they are near him but refuse to leave his side. 

He does his best to ignore it. If the others refuse to tell him, asking questions will do little good, and in any case Laurence is not entirely certain that he even wants to be told. 

But there is definitely something, and once Laurence has noticed, he cannot help but wonder what it might be. 

  
  


Unfortunately, Granby cannot actually sleep in the same room as Will without attracting undue attention, so he takes the room next to Will’s and hopes that if anything happens he will hear. 

Tharkay visits some nights, most nights, leans against Granby on the narrow bed and twines their hands together and does not kiss him, however much wine they share. Granby wishes that he would and in the same breath hopes that he won’t. 

“He doesn’t know,” Granby tells him the first night, when Tharkay has finally been permitted to leave his own bed. He doesn’t say out loud just what it is that Will doesn’t know, for fear that Will is listening to them as carefully as they are listening to him, but he is nearly certain that Tharkay can tell anyway. Tharkay always can. 

Tharkay hums softly. “But I think he knows that there is something  _ to _ know,” he says, and Granby has to admit that he is right; unfortunately, there isn’t much that they can do about that. 

“The others don’t,” Granby says, a whisper now — that is to say, they know about the treason, but not about  _ that _ — and they don't know that any other secret exists — 

“Good,” says Tharkay, just as quietly. 

“Not even Temeraire,” Granby says, and Tharkay pauses. 

“...Good.” 

  
  


It is not that Laurence did not notice how hopeful Temeraire was, that somehow Tharkay’s rescue would have made Laurence’s memories come rushing back. It is only that the thing was patently impossible — no one person’s face could do as much as that, if the revelation of a twenty-ton dragon could not. He is  _ grateful _ to Tharkay, of course, for all that he has been told the man has done for him, but he still remembers none of it. 

This is not helpful in the least when attempting to determine what secret is being withheld from him. 

He’s stolen enough time alone to look through old letters, and gleaned only that Emily Roland might be his own daughter: improbable, given that he has only forgotten eight years back and he certainly does not remember her mother, and in any case a group of aviators is unlikely to consider it so important as to hide it, but possible at least in theory. There is a block of time spanning nearly a year where Laurence apparently neither sent nor received any correspondence at all, but he is uncertain whether he was in such a remote location that none could be delivered, if he was secluding himself deliberately, or if it was all destroyed after the fact. The second option seems dubious, but both the first and the third are reasonably likely, and either the second or the third could be telling, if only he had any idea what those missing letters might have  _ said. _

In any case, he isn’t much closer to finding out the great secret than he was before. Even Temeraire, so straightforward as to be blunt, has yet to tell him anything that seems appropriately noteworthy. But at the very least, he knows that there is anything  _ to _ know. 

That being said, Laurence is beginning to despair of ever learning. 

  
  


Granby knows that, no matter what he does, Will is simply too polite to outright  _ ask _ what he is hiding. It is entirely possible that he is banking on the fact. 

Augustine, however, is not too polite. Nor is Chenery, or Roland, or Harcourt. That's why Granby is relying on making sure that none of them realize that he is hiding anything at all. It's also the primary reason that he has been so careless about Tharkay’s visits: so that if Augustine corners him in the corridor and demands to know what Granby has been hiding from him, Granby has something to tell him that isn't — that isn't. 

It is difficult to even think the words, for all that Granby saw it happen, and could not stop it. 

He shakes himself. Will is here. Will is here, and he does not remember, and he does not know. Nobody knows except for Granby and Tharkay, and nobody is going to find out. 

Even Granby doesn't quite believe that, but it will have to do. 

  
  


Laurence has been keeping a journal in case his memories mysteriously vanish again, written in transliterated Mandarin in the hope that nobody else will be able to read it and he can keep his thoughts private. 

His fluency with the language is odd, but comforting; he can write like this nearly as quickly as he can in English, which means that he almost doesn't notice when he writes,  _ Possibly it would be better if Temeraire were free of me.  _

Then he stops, puts down his pen, and reads over the sentence again. 

_ Possibly it would be better if Temeraire were free of me.  _

He would know. Surely he would know, if it were that. 

But Granby and Tharkay’s obvious concern, Temeraire’s hovering — they all make more sense, when he considers it. 

  
  


Will seeks Granby out at night in the clearing where Iskierka is sleeping, when the dragons and the other aviators are asleep and the two of them are alone. 

“There is something you haven't been telling me,” Will says, quietly so as not to wake anyone. “I'm not angry, I'm sure that you had your reasons, but there are a few things I'd like answered.” 

Granby swallows and nods. He cannot very well do anything else. 

Will looks him in the eyes. “When I fell off the ship, was it on purpose?” 

“…Yes,” Granby says. It feels raw to say it out loud, after having hidden it for nearly a month. 

Will nods slowly. “Thank you,” he says softly. And then, quieter: “…I don't think I want my memories back.” 


End file.
